The Challenge of Writing Sex Scenes

Sex sells. Would anyone read Fifty Shades of Grey without the sex? Luckily, I write mysteries rather than romance novels or erotica, so explicit sex is not the centerpiece of my stories. Still, as long as characters are not solitary beings, love and lust will come into play, and sex will have a role. I recently looked at several articles of the "10 Steps to Writing Great Sex Scenes" variety to help guide my creativity. The first step in one article was "Get drunk." I assume the point was to lose inhibitions without losing coherence. The first step in another was "Decide what you're comfortable reading and writing." Agreed: Uncomfortable writing makes uncomfortable reading. The first step in a third was "Consider the genre." Yep, romance readers demand love scenes. Those were all good pieces of advice. But I realized I needed to step back and start with more fundamental decisions. First, did I really need sex to advance my plot, flesh out characterization, or create a mood or foreshadowing? Tossing in an extraneous sex scene can bog down a novel as surely as padded dialogue and dead-end plot detours. Second, did I need to describe a love scene, a sex scene, or sexual acts? A love scene may include explicit descriptions, but it is first and foremost about emotions and the romantic relationship. In contrast, a sex scene spotlights sensual pleasures; a "What's love got to do with it?" moment can be a thrilling read. Once you talk about depicting "sexual acts," you veer into a darker place, with a focus on disappointment, conflict, and emotional and physical sadism (and I don't mean the kind with a "safe" word). Third, what style -- subtle or graphic -- fits the purpose of the scene and the characters? By the way, "subtle" doesn't mean hokey euphemisms (his rod) or hyperbole (the earth moved), and "graphic" doesn't mean crude slang or anatomical accuracy. My thanks to one writer who helpfully put together a list of words to avoid, such as turgid and purple. For one of the more detailed guides to writing love scenes, check out http://www.writing-world.com/romance/love.shtml

Why Are We Seduced by the Bad Boy Hero?

There was a time when I was a sucker for the "bad boy" hero. You know the type: the volatile, wrong-side-of-the tracks rebel who's handsome, charismatic, street-smart, and who has a sexual prowess that thrills the primmest good girl. In the movies, he's James Dean; in romance novels, he's the hero of Teresa Medeiros' Nobody's Darling; in the mystery/action genre, he's got Jack Reacher's vibe. The bad-boy allure for women is more than fantasy, however: Scientific studies have found that men with a "dark triad" of traits -- the self-obsession of the narcissist, the impulsive thrill-seeking of the psychopath, and the deceitful exploitation of Machiavelli -- really do score more sexual conquests than the average. How could such negative traits win hearts? Well, research proves that the dark-triad personalities are better than most at making themselves attractive, charming, exciting and sexually appealing. Female biology also seems to prefer these high-testosterone types; studies show ovulating women are more apt to choose "bad boys" as mates. Of course, selfish, manipulative seducers tend to have short-term relationships, by their own choice and because most women eventually reject the cad behind the sexy mask. Maybe that's why the bad-boy archetype lost his appeal for me in my reading and my writing. He's just got no staying power romantically. But that doesn't mean there aren't other sexy options! Romance Author Tami Cowden offers a fun discussion of various romantic hero archetypes. Besides The Bad Boy, her list still includes The Chief, The Charmer, The Professor, The Swashbuckler, The Best Friend, The Warrior and The Lost Soul (oh, those sexy vampires). For Cowden's article, go to http://www.likesbooks.com/eight.html

That Maligned Passive Voice Has Its Place

English teachers and writing critics warn of the evils of the passive voice. To quote William Zinsser's respected On Writing Well: "The difference between an active-verb style and a passive-verb style--in clarity and vigor--is the difference between life and death for a writer." Wow, that's aggressive about the passive! To be clear, the usual sentence structure is subject-verb-object. (The boy hit the ball.) The passive structure reverses this to make the object of an action into the subject of the sentence. (The ball was hit by the boy.) The passive voice requires use of a form of "to be" with a past participle, and while it is grammatically OK, the passive form is often clunkier, wordier, and less clear. That said, convincing writers that the passive is totally taboo does them a disservice. There are times when the passive voice is the right choice. You may opt for the passive when the object of the action is much more important than the performer of the action, for example. This is especially true in news writing: The shorter headline "Spree Killer Convicted" grabs attention before "Jury Convicts Spree Killer." The passive structure can work fine when the performer of an action is unknown. (Five dogs were adopted last week.)  When the subject/actor is unimportant to the reader, the passive may be preferred. (Our new TV was delivered today.) In dialogue, use of the passive voice also can create an intentional nuance of feeling and motive. For example, a character who speaks in the passive voice may be expressing emotional distance. (A new home has been found for the children.) The passive can imply evasion and avoidance of responsibility. (Mistakes were made.) And when the passive form is frequently in the first person, it shows the self-focus of the constant subject. (I was envied/chosen/injured/angered by...) For more discussion and usage examples, see http://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/passive-voice/

Taking Time Out to Visit the Dream Theater

I try to post every week, but last week, coming back from an exhausting out-of-town wedding, I fell sick and ran a high fever. I spent a lot of time dozing in bed, too weak to spend long at the computer. But there was one interesting result from the experience: The high fever, coupled with a side effect of prescribed antibiotics, generated a spate of vivid dreams of hallucinatory, technicolor beauty. All of the dreams focused on getting from one place to another despite obstacles that ranged from the mundane (a missed train) to the frustrating (a confusing foreign hotel) to the daunting (a vast primeval forest). I realized that each dream offered, again and again, a diagnosis and solution to a problem of transition--an issue I had been wrestling in a current writing project! Thank you to my dreaming self. As Carl Jung once noted, "the dream is the theater where the dreamer is at once scene, actor, prompter, stage manager, author, audience, and critic." It made me wonder about more significant creative results from dreams. Among writers, Stephen King says dream scenes inspired a number of his books, including Misery; Mary Shelley created Frankenstein based on a nightmare; and Robert Louis Stevenson conceived The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde from a dream. Clearly dreams are better inspirations for horror and fantasy than light romance! Consider these other examples of creative dreaming: Supposedly, Paul McCartney first heard the tune to "Yesterday" in a dream. Scientists Otto Loewi, Friedrich Kekulé von Stradonitz, and Srinivasa Ramanujan all claim to have discovered in dreams, respectively, the chemical transmission of nerve impulses, the structure of Benzene, and mathematical formulae including the infinite series of pi. And a dream even helped Elias Howe invent the sewing machine. When the eyes are shut and the unconscious mind is open, the dream theater can put on some inspirational shows! For more, see http://brilliantdreams.com/product/famous-dreams.htm

The Trouble With Adverbs

"I believe the road to hell is paved with adverbs," writer Stephen King has declared. Many other writing pros agree that adverbial excess is the bane of creative prose, especially overuse of verb modifiers ending in "-ly." King is especially opposed to the use of adverbs in dialogue attribution. So what's so wrong with adverbs? Take this dialogue example: "'You're wrong,' she said angrily." Not awful, if your goal is "not awful" writing. This kind of adverb use is often the crutch of lazy or limited writing that lacks appropriately expressive verbs. So let's dump the adverb "angrily" and replace the neutral "said" with a verb such as "shouted," "snarled," "snapped," "shrilled" or "hissed." I think you can see that the alternative verbs, sans adverbs, paint a clearer and yet more nuanced scene, with implications about the degree of anger and the speaker's character. Or we could keep the "said" and replace the adverb with an action expressing anger, such as "she said through gritted teeth" or "she said, clenching her fists." Again, the reader can better visualize the conversation. Adverbs also can overpopulate the work of an insecure writer, who fears prose or dialogue just isn't getting the point across. So an unsure writer hits the reader over the head with a sentence such as "'You're wrong,' she shouted angrily." The adverb is redundant dead weight. Assuming the other person wasn't deaf, why would she shout if she wasn't angry? For more from adverb adversary Stephen King, including why King believes "fear is at the root of most bad writing," see http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/03/13/stephen-king-on-adverbs/

The Challenge of Creating a Good Villain

A traditional mystery, especially a murder mystery, requires a proper villain or two. Like a spider in a web, these antagonists are the prime movers at the heart of the mystery -- murdering, abetting, lying, betraying, and generally causing pain, grief and turmoil. Usually, the protagonist, who seeks to solve the central secret of who did what and why, can be flawed or tortured but must ultimately be on the side of justice if not the angels. And the villain can be sympathetic, even admirable, but must ultimately pay for choosing the wrong/evil path. So creating a foil or nemesis of the protagonist is central to my plotting, and crafting "evil" motives and characters is always the most challenging start of my writing process. The deadly sins are always handy motives -- wrath, greed, pride, lust, and envy being trusty root causes of many criminal downfalls. Or, antagonists can simply be monsters driven by insane or amoral cravings.  But I find such baddies too simplistic; interesting villains are more complex and more conflicted. They are guides to the darker corners of our own psyches where we can understand the allure and power of immoral choices. It is disturbing to see a common experience -- injustice, insecurity, manipulation, grief, love, fear, shame, lust -- unite with a common character flaw, such as selfishness, impulsiveness or ego, with tragic results. It implies that there is a potential villain in all of us. However, the most fascinating adversaries also have an X factor, a character trait that raises them above the ordinary sinner and makes them especially dangerous. Ironically, it is often a quality of greatness: charm, intelligence, beauty or courage. For more on creating villains, see http://theeditorsblog.net/2011/05/04/the-mean-the-bad-and-the-nasty-writing-villains/

When Wikipedia's Sexist Slip Showed in 2013

In case you didn't note it, Wikipedia had women trouble in 2013. It began when writer Amanda Filipacchi protested in an April New York Times op-ed piece that Wikipedia was quietly but systematically removing all women from the category "American novelists" and placing them in the subcategory of "American women novelists." Headlines and commentators decried Wikipedia's sexism, and many attributed bias to the fact that Wikipedia's cyberspace editors are 90% male. The issue also highlighted all kinds of Wikipedia ghettos, where women and racial or ethnic groups were assigned only to subcategories. Well, after the uproar, the women novelists are listed in the main American novelist category again, as well as in the American women novelist subcategory and whatever other subcategories Wikipedia pedants deem relevant, from mystery writers to lesbian writers to African-American women writers. This is a debate that many may dismiss as overly sensitive semantics about an effort to logically structure information. But I think it reflects real social challenges. When we collectively think about people by category, we can place real limits on how we treat them in education, in politics and even in personal relationships. We set different standards and expectations based on assumed generalized characteristics, and we may justify subtle or blatant discrimination based on stereotypes. Human "categories" have lead to oppression, genocide and war, and we need to be very careful of their use and implications. Wikipedia is just one mirror of how we think about each other; there are many other examples in our media, politics and private lives. We really do need to be vigilant and vocal when faced with distorted "categorizing." For more on the Wikipedia controversy, see http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2013/apr/29/wikipedia-women-problem/